Make Do, Mend & Minimise in 2025 (and 2024)

London_1

Made do : I found with the excessive heat when I was reading in bed my bedside light was actually giving off a certain amount of heat .I was sure I had a 'Book light' that clips on your book .

Had a dig around one of the bottom drawers and found it I remember my eldest DD gave it to me a couple of years ago when she bought an already lit  up  Kindle that she reads in bed so the light doesn't disturb her OH

So after charging it up last night only took about 30 minutes, I clipped it to my book and switched off the bedside light a voila a nice little light that clips on to my book and I can read perfectly with it and don't need the bedside light on, a bit money saving as well as cooler

Mend : at the weekend a gust of wind lifted the sun brolly from the patio and where one of the arms goes into the material it had come adrift so a quick five minute hand stitching job with some strong thread sorted it out

Minimised : had a sort out of some of the wool in my stash and found enough to drop bag off in the CS next week Its colours I won't be using for anything , some left over browns from when I made my great granddaughters a brownie uniform for their dolls, and a few navy and black balls. I knit charity blankets for children and like to use bright cheerful colours so the dark ones can go as someone may find a use for them.

Slowly finding homes for odds and ends that keep turning up when I have a root around I moved last July and still have a few boxes to sort through

JackieO xx

YorksLass

Lovely to see you posting again @London_1 - you seem very happy and settled on the IoW, long may it continue.

Minimise: Gone from the Use Up list of items that have passed their BB dates - A jar of curry sauce for chicken madras, one portion for tonight and one for the freezer.  A tin of potatoes for potato salad and as a soup thickener.  Two 2-finger KitKats, not a hardship!    

Make Do: Have sewn a quilted seat pad for the sofa, using some fabric from my stash so it's a bit of a Minimise as well.

Another Minimise: While the weather has been hot I've abandoned my knitting in favour of cross stitch and have completed two kits that I bought last year.  They're heart shaped door hangers, one with a snowman on it and the other with two reindeer - I may not have got them done in time for last Xmas but they're definitely ready for this year!     

                          

weenancyinAmerica

@YorksLass - Love the two cross stitch projects.

Cherryfudge

Make do and Mend - very little to report, though I suppose I could count cleaning up a recipe book that I bought from a car boot sale so that I can have it on the kitchen counter without it being a health hazard!

Minimise - a jumper and two bags donated. Surely I can do better than that, especially as I've brought more stuff into the house?

Green_hopeful

We have been doing the Fast 800 diet. I have minimised 12 lb which is great. We are now trying the follow on 5:2 diet. I went over to the fields and picked some Mulberries for pancakes this morning. I used them instead of blueberries in the recipe. Delicious. 

YorksLass

Minimise:
- Two no longer needed cotton throws and a handbag have gone into the CS bag. 
- Another knitted jumper sewn up ready for winter - 350g of cotton yarn released from the stash.
- Patio planters emptied (no plants in them, just weeds  ) and most have been binned as they're either cracked or have holes in them.  The bulbs that were in them have either rotted or something's been eating them.  

Make Do:
About a month ago I bought a packet of Ovaltine biscuits to try and sadly I'm not keen on them - far too crunchy and don't taste anything like Ovaltine.  Even dunking doesn't help!  So today I've crushed them up into crumbs, now stored in a screw top jar, to be used as either a biscuit base for cheesecake, sprinkled over ice cream/yogurt or to add to crumble mix.

Mend:
For once, there is no mending pile!  

London_1

Hi Chums 

Made do
              Dug out a couple of tins while looking for something else in one of the lower kitchen cupboards

 One was a tin of baked beans so half a tin did me lunch on toasted cheese.

 My DD isn't keen on them and my son-in-law doesn't eat them at all, it said date on the tin Feb 2025 but they tasted OK to me and I've not died yet
 
The other one was a tin of tomatoes dated August 2025 so they have gone into the main tinned store at the front to be used up first  

Minimised.
                 Two left over wooden pallets to my DDs friends husband left by the patio men last week, he is going to apparently turn them into wooden planters, as wood is so expensive I said he was welcome to them. 

Mend. Sewn some new buttons on a cardi that had lost a few, Its a comfy one I wear on autumn days in the garden, but although a bit like me, old and wrinkled  I like it and feel loathe to chuck it out for the sake of some buttons. 

I have a good stash in my button big  tin as when things finally do get thrown away as past recycling I always cut the buttons off
 I still have in my big button tin a set of tiny blue duffle coat buttons from my youngest DDs coat from when she was four
she's now 56 but I've had them so long I just can't throw them away. Hopefully one of the boys will produce a great grandson and I will make a little jacket to use them up at last (I have three great granddaughters at the moment

JackieO xxx 

florianatwobob

My sandals are with the shoe repairer for mending as I have vertically split the backs of them. They’re a wedge and already done two years valiant service for me and I am notoriously hard on my heels. 

Unfortunately as there’s no underlying structure to the wedge he can’t repair as is and he can’t find a replacement pre-made wedge unit as they’re quite narrow. However as he’s a proper shoe repairer and elf (rather than a chain) he’s gamely building and shaping me two new soles. It does mean I’m now paying the same for the repair as I did for the sandals in the first place but they will be permanently repairable and better than when I first bought them! 

If he wasn’t so good I’d be a bit more concerned about the outlay but my skinny flipper feet do like these sandals. 

Cherryfudge

A busy few weeks have been had, I'll see what I can remember:

Make do: I needed fridge space so I tidied up cabbage, carrots and a bit of cheese into coleslaw. Pleased with that as it was very 'waste-not'.

Mend: Nothing recently but there will be soon as the dishwasher isn't working properly. That's not a job we can tackle so we need to organise someone to come out to it. Then (probably consequent to the d/w problem) we've had two kitchen floor puddles. The first was dirty water so probably drained from the d/w. Then this morning there was fresh water so it's looking as though running the washing machine yesterday has dislodged a feeder pipe. And then... the smoke detector has started to buzz. Not a low-battery bleep or an 'I smell smoke' alarm but a random buzz. The internet thinks it could be a pre-battery-failure warning, though I've not come across that before. Anyway, first step is replace the batteries, which must be about due anyway.

Minimise: I had to rehome some irises after we had work done on the garden and a bag of them went yesterday.

mandy47

Make do.
Had a freezer week. Created space for veggies from the garden.

Minimised. 
Dehydrated tomatoes. We have a glut this year.
 Used up some baking ingredients making rock cakes.

Mend.
Replaced silicone around another window. Only the bathroom and a small amount in the kitchen left to do.